al works is,
that one needs not be a Mezzofanti to read the Russian, Spanish, German,
French, Italian, English, and other faces that pass before one
panoramically. There sits a relation of a hospodar, drinking Russian
tea; he pours into a large cup a small glass of brandy, throws in a
slice of lemon, fills up with hot tea. Do you think of the miles he has
traveled, in a _telega_, over snow-covered steppes, and the smoking
_samovar_ of tea that awaited him, his journey for the day ended? Had he
lived when painting and sculpture were in their ripe prime, what a fiery
life he would have thrown into his works! As it is, he drinks cognac,
hunts wild-boars in the Pontine marshes--and paints Samson and Delilah,
after models.

The Spanish artist, over a cup of chocolate, has lovely dreams, of burnt
umber hue, and despises the neglected treasures left him by the Moors,
while he seeks gold in--castles in the air.

The German, with feet in Italy and head far away in the Fatherland,
frequents the German-club in preference to the Greco; for at the club is
there not lager beer?.... In imperial Rome, there are lager beer
breweries! He has the profundities of the esthetical in art at his
finger-ends; it is deep-sea fishing, and he occasionally lands a whale,
as Kaulbach has done; or very nearly catches a mermaid with Cornelius.
Let us respect the man--he _works_.

The French artist, over a cup of black coffee, with perhaps a small
glass of cognac, is the lightning to the German thunder. If he were
asked to paint the portrait of a potato, he would make eyes about it,
and then give you a little picture fit to adorn a boudoir. He does every
thing with a flourish. If he has never painted Nero performing that
celebrated violin-solo over Rome, it is because he despaired of
conveying an idea of the tremulous flourish of the fiddle-bow. He reads
nature, and translates her, without understanding her. He will prove to
you that the cattle of Rosa Bonheur are those of the fields, while he
will object to Landseer that his beasts are those of the guinea
cattle-show. He blows up grand facts in the science of art with
gunpowder, while the English dig them out with a shovel, and the Germans
bore for them. He finds Raphael, king of pastel artists, and never
mentions his discovery to the English. He is more dangerous with the
_fleurette_ than many a trooper with broadsword. Every thing that he
appropriates, he stamps with the character of his own nati